I have no faith in the sense of comforting beliefs which persuade me that all my troubles are blessings in disguise.

Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.

There is no escape from mystery. It is the character of our being.

A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige throughbeing mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.

If there is a God, I don't think He would demand that anyone bow down or stand up to Him. I often have a suspicion that God is still trying to work things out and hasn't finished.

... it is nearly impossible to understand those who are beyond our sight, who are not explained to us by ties of birth or the contact of the flesh.

Without doubt cats are intellectuals who have been, by some mysterious decree of Providence, deprived of the comfort of the word.